


Melancholia

by captainhurricane



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 06:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2013738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainhurricane/pseuds/captainhurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After FOXALIVE, after the guns have stopped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Melancholia

**Author's Note:**

> since they never really mentioned if Raiden got his human parts back, I'll just handwave over that. Sorry. Raiden/Rose also gets mentioned but it's not the focus and the major character death happens sort of off-screen. After MGS4.

”-den!”

”Five more minutes,” grumbles Raiden and burrows himself deeper into the pillows, white hair sticking into all directions. The window of his hospital room is open to let the gentle breeze in. It makes Raiden’s skin rise to goosebumps as he murmurs something again.

”Raiden, you have a visitor,” comes the soft voice of his nurse, her amusement twinkling through her professionalism. Raiden blinks. Rosemary and little John had been here barely an hour ago and Raiden had promptly fallen asleep after rolling around in his bed, dreaming about his body being ripped apart, the weight of a sword between his teeth. It had made his body cold.

”But-” he blinks and sits up. The nurse smiles at the doorway.

”I think he said his name was Snake,” she says and walks to the hallway, brushing the arm of the elderly gentleman as he steps inside instead. Raiden is awake in an instant, brushing his strands away from his sweat-slick forehead. Solid Snake does not look much without his sneaking suits or his bandanna, he has rolled up the sleeves of his dark turtle neck and put out his cigarette but the scent of it is still lingering around him. There are dark circles under his eyes and for a moment he’s like any other old man who has had enough of the world and its battles.

”Snake,” Raiden says instead of the good afternoon he wanted to say. Snake smiles, a sardonic curl of his lips as he takes a seat next to Raiden’s bed. Of course Raiden had heard of what happened, the wedding and Snake disappearing in the middle of it, then coming back to grab the arm of Otacon who had ceased his tears in an instant. The soldiers had gone to the graveyard to find two bodies, two old men who had been at the core of the conflict for the past few decades. They had cremated both of them later on with little noise and little grief, men in suits had come and gone with Zero’s ashes but Big Boss- Snake had held the urn containing the grey dust of his reluctant father and wondered that perhaps the ocean would have been better than the dull, windy graveyard. Big Boss hadn’t earned his love but perhaps, at that last moment, he had earned his respect.

”I’m sorry I couldn’t visit you earlier, kid,” Snake says, voice as quiet and gruff as ever. Raiden had seen a flash of him after their meeting when the battles were still weighing heavy on their shoulders but nothing after that and had worried- had thought that maybe there was a reason for the silence.

”I-” I missed you. Raiden lays his hands on his lap. He knows he must make a sight with the dark lines going through his pale skin here and there, marking where a man ends and a cyborg begins. He’s made of electricity and wires and flesh. Raiden hears his own heart beating louder than necessary.  
”It’s okay,” he says instead, mouth twitching into a pained smile. Snake asks for his permission to smoke and Raiden pulls the window open further. It’s an oddly comforting sight; Solid Snake, the soldier that he had admired so, just an unassuming old man with his cigarettes, fingers trembling and making it hard to keep the lighter still. Raiden doesn’t offer to help, thinks Snake wouldn’t let him.

”Maybe you shouldn’t smoke so much, though. I- I heard your lungs-” Raiden starts instead and reaches out when Snake starts coughing and doesn’t stop until it’s laughter that gives the old eyes a glint that was never there earlier.

”I come here to comfort you and instead you worry,” Snake says once he has had a sip of water and gotten the cigarette back between his lips. Raiden frowns, lays his hands down on his lap again.  
”I’m fine,” he says but looks at the open window. His skin rises to goosebumps again. If Raiden closes his eyes, he doesn’t feel the steady hum of wiring under it.

”Kid, I don’t got much to live. Make the effort not to keep things to yourself,” Snake says and his voice is rougher than necessary but it does what he came to do. Raiden turns to look at him, opens his mouth and closes it again. It barely registers that he’s clutching the sheet in his white-knuckled hands. The gentleness on Snake’s face makes it look younger, more naive somehow. Had anyone in their world ever been naive anyway.  
”Don’t pity me,” Snake says and blows a cloud of smoke that slithers towards the window. Raiden inhales.  
”I’m not. And I’m not, I’m not lying exactly,” he says and watches Snake again, remembers him as he were when Raiden didn’t know much of the real world and every inch of his skin was his and his alone. Snake raises an eyebrow. Raiden’s face heats up.  
”I am fine. I’m getting there,” he says and swallows. He knows he doesn’t need to say aloud what’s been done to him, what’s been done to Snake and all the other soldiers like them in the world. Snake has seen deeper shadows and can still walk on the world believing that maybe mankind has a chance.

”That’s good. The nightmares will lessen too. Maybe not go away entirely but they will be less and you’ll remember they’re just dreams,” Snake says, like continuing a conversation that begun elsewhere. Raiden doesn’t ask how he knows about the nightmares.  
”It’s good that you say so since I don’t .. I don’t want to scare my kid.” It’s still scary in a way to think about that, to recognize his own face on the features of little John, that same thin, serious mouth. Yet exciting. Snake huffs. Keep talking, Raiden thinks. Keep talking and maybe his earlier words won’t be the only things staying with me.  
”If he’s anything like you, he’ll make it,” Snake remarks and leans over the bed to stump the cigarette to the window sill. Raiden huffs, smiles a little ruefully. Snake takes that chance to ruffle his hair and then- Raiden’s breath gets stuck in his throat as dry lips brush his forehead.

”Raiden, you’ve already outlived us Snakes and done that with your heart intact. Go live with your girlfriend and your kid and leave the fighting to those who have got nothing to lose. Right?” All this is said in that same gruff monotone, a hint of a smile lightening up that grim exterior. Snake smells like cigarettes and something that reminds Raiden of that dim corridor where they stood back to back.  
”Easier said than done. It’s hard, Snake,” Raiden says, voice hitched and quiet. His eyes sting. Snake sits back on the chair.

”And it’s supposed to be hard. Taking the easy way out would result in, well.” Snake waves a hand around the room like marking it as the whole world. He still wakes up dreaming of his make-shift family and saying goodbye to each member of it one by one, all dying with the wind on their faces.  
”And you don’t want that.” Raiden can’t help but chuckle then and sigh, shaking his head.  
”You’re reading my mind,” he huffs and once again resumes staring at his hands. He knows Snake is smiling, rueful and tired but accepting of his fate.  
”Someone has got to stick up for peace and not let snakes like us try for world domination,” Snake says and the scrape of the chair makes Raiden look up again, biting the inside of his cheek but thoughtful, oddly light-headed.

”This isn’t a goodbye, right?” He rather wants to reach out to grab the hem of Snake’s shirt, to make him stay. To snag a bit of Snake’s confidence for himself, that quiet acceptance of what is to come.

”Of course, kid. Don’t you know goodbyes are only temporary.” Snake steps out with steady steps with the kind of grin that comes and goes with ease as it doesn’t belong on Snake’s face, has never done. Yet the word had been genuine. Raiden stays upright for long after the sound of his footsteps have gone, finding that for a moment the anxiety is replaced with a sense of peace. He brushes his fingers over his cheeks and finds them wet.


End file.
